XLE Line Array: Sunday Best at Bournemouth

November 26th, 2007

St Swithun’s of Bournemouth-a large resort town on England’s south coast-is home to the Bournemouth Family Church, part of the New Frontiers ministry, and host to a vibrant congregation which is growing so fast that it is looking for a second venue. The Church called upon Creative Solutions, and on the advice of John Ellis and David Howe of Shuttlesound (EV’s UK distributor), to design a sound system that would handle all their speech reinforcement needs as well as provide amplification for the singers and bands that perform as part of the services.

The solution came in the shape of a single line array comprised of 6x Electro-Voice XLE181 cabinets, flown alongside 2x XS212 subs. The XLE181 is the most compact line array element made by EV, so the array is surprisingly unobtrusive, flown against the dark timbered arch of the ceiling, and silhouetted against a massive stained-glass window.

EV’s XLE181 is a two-way design using an 8“ neodymium LF/MB transducer as the XLD281 and dual ND2S HF driver combination with 120° x 10° waveguide coverage. Weighing less than 18 kg (40lbs) per unit, the XLE offers a powerful, very compact solution for sound reinforcement applications with limited space and/or load capacity. The 181s are used in conjunction with EV’s NetMax N8000 audio processor, which provides control of all loudspeaker management functions. The system is powered by EV CP Series amplifiers: CP3000S and 2200 for the mids and tops; CP4000S for the subs.

Says Shuttlesound’s David Howe: “It’s a long throw from the front of the church to the seats at the very back, and the environment is highly reverberant. It needed to be quite a powerful system, but using the line array provides much better control than a point source system.“

The XLE array is supplemented by a pair of moveable Zx5 15“ two-way enclosures, which are ideal for smaller congregations and meetings, as well as acting as front fills for the main system.